China Daily/Reuters/Landov
Chongqing party leader Bo Xilai was ousted March 15
In a terse announcement, China’s official Xinhua News Agency announced March 15 that the charismatic Chongqing party leader and princeling Bo Xilai, has been replaced. It is the biggest setback for a senior Chinese Communist Party leader since at least the sacking of former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu in a corruption scandal in 2006. “Bo will no longer serve as
secretary, standing committee member or member of the CPC Chongqing municipal committee,” according to the Xinhua announcement.
secretary, standing committee member or member of the CPC Chongqing municipal committee,” according to the Xinhua announcement.
While Bo is still listed on a government website as one of the 25 members of China’s ruling Politburo, it is unclear whether he will also have to step down from that body. Even if he doesn’t, Bo’s political future seems finished, and his once-likely appointment to the nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo-with seven positions up for grabs this fall in a major leadership transition–is finished.
While some see the fall of Bo as a setback for princelings, or the children of early revolutionary leaders, others see his downfall stemming from a more generalized resistance in the ruling party to Bo’s swashbuckling, non-traditional campaign style—in essence, his use of populism and personality to try to win promotion to the top echelons of Chinese leadership. “Some leaders have been very nervous about Bo Xilai’s self-promotional campaign. They see it as a possible effort to establish a political kingdom to challenge Beijing,” says Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The 62-year-old party leader’s demise also suggests significant resistance to what some had started calling the Chongqing model. That’s usually seen as an approach to running the political economy that advocates conservative values, including the singing of “red songs” from China’s Maoist past, as well as an aggressive crackdown on crime. Bo’s assault on crime, a campaign called “dahei,” –literally “hit black,”– put 2,000 people in jail in the southwestern municipality of 30 million people. These moves raised the ire of some Chinese intellectuals and party members who saw them as a regressive step back to a less open, and more dogma-ruled China. READ MORE
